Where the Nurses are Pretty and the Doctors are Pissed

In London between 1788 and 1790, up to fifty women claimed to have been attacked by a man who became known as the London Monster.

According to the victims (most of them from wealthier families), a large man had followed them, shouted obscenities and stabbed them in the buttocks. Some reports claimed an attacker had knives fastened to his knees. Other accounts reported that he would invite prospective victims to smell a fake nosegay and then stab them in the nose with the spike hiding within the flowers.

When people realised that the Monster attacked mainly beautiful women, some women claimed that they had been attacked to gain attention and sympathy. Armed vigilantes set out to patrol the city. Fashionable ladies began to wear copper pans over their petticoats.

On June 13, 1790, Anne Porter claimed she had spotted her attacker in St. James’s Park. Her admirer, John Coleman, pursued the man, who realised he was being followed. When Rhynwick Williams, an unemployed 23-year-old, reached his house, Coleman confronted him, accusing him of insulting a lady, and took Williams to meet Porter, who fainted when she saw him.

Williams protested his innocence but, given the climate of panic, it was futile. He admitted that he had once approached Porter but had an alibi for another of the attacks. Magistrates charged Williams with defacing clothing — a crime that in the Bloody Code carried harsher penalty than assault or attempted murder.

Despite the fact that a number of alleged victims gave contradictory stories and that coworkers testified that he had an alibi for the most famous attack, Williams was convicted on three counts and sentenced to two years each, for a total of six years in prison.

His time spent behind bars was not entirely wasted: he fathered a child who was conceived whilst Williams was imprisoned. He later married the mother of his child on release.

Stabbers, or piquers, were attacking women in the streets, cutting their buttocks with sharp rapiers fastened to canes or umbrellas. There was widespread alarm and it was recommended that married women be accompanied by their husbands at all times and those without husbands should wear bottom protectors.

Police agents and private piquer hunters dressed up as women to tempt the villains to attack but they had no luck. Twenty prostitutes were employed as decoys, they were to walk through Paris followed by policemen in plain clothes. In spite of these bizarre promenades no piquer was caught; even though over 880 francs had been spent on the harlots and their wine allowance.

At the same time, the Madchenschneider, or Girl-Cutter, of Augsberg, began a long and bloody career. Again , several women were cut across the legs or buttocks, apparently without motive. A 37 year old wine merchant was caught after a reign of terror lasting 18 years.

Another series of attacks took place in Strasbourg in 1880, a man in a dark cloak assaulted respectable women in the streets late in the evening, wounding their breasts or genitals with a sharp instrument. When 29 year old hairdresser, Theophil Mary, was finally arrested, he had clocked up 35 victims.

In July 1894, a French youth was arrested for cutting the buttocks of a large number of young girls in broad daylight. The 19 year old was described as a beardless youth with a timid embarrassed manner. He described how he had, ever since the age of 15, felt a high degree of excitement whenever he saw a woman’s buttocks.

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In Chicago in 1906, a manhunt began for “Jack the Cutter” who stabbed the buttocks of seven females in just one day alone. In the same year, “Jack the Stabber” ran amok in St Louis, also stabbing female bottoms. In 1925 the hunt was on for another American attacker, “The Connecticut Jabber.”

In 1977, “Jack the Snipper” was active on the London Underground. Before the London Transport Police put an end to his fun, he had cut 17 skirts from behind, and exposed their wearers’ backsides to all viewers.

In 1984, according the The News of the World, a very short and stunted man had attacked nine women in Birmingham, stabbing them in the buttocks. In 1985, this pint sized pervert was still at large……